The big scene of the day:
7:30pm Tarik Yousef - Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington tells Al Jazeera following Gaddafi's 'surprise speech' speech at Green Square, thirty minutes earlier:
I am torn between seeing this as a legitimate speech in front of crowds willing to support him, but I'm also aware of the capability of Libyan propaganda machine, so I want to wait and see what the analysts make of it ... That is not the average scene of what you'd expect from Green Square
A scattered sampling of the speech:
I am one with the people... life without green banners is useless... sing and revoice. ... I am among the public. We will continue to fight. We will defeat them. We will die here on the soil of Libya. We will defeat the foreing threats as we defeated the Italians. This is the invincible force of youth. ... We can defeat any aggression if necessary and arm the people.... You, the youth, be comfortable… dance, sing, stay up all night.
Meanwhile, in the streets of Tripoli (NSFW):
Mackey has compiled an impressive number of clips. He also relays this dramatic development:
While it is hard to distinguish between reports and rumors on the fighting around Libya's capital on Friday, Martin Chulov, a Guardian correspondent in Benghazi, wrote on Twitter that Mitiga air base in Tripoli "is confirmed to have fallen."
A news summary from The Guardian:
Most of Libya's delegation to the UN in New York had already abandoned the regime. The Libyan delegation to the Arab League in Cairo has renounced Gaddafi and condemned his attack on "unarmed citizens" (see 3.41pm). Libya's ambassadors to France and Unesco quit and condemned the violence. Prosecutor-general Abdul-Rahman al-Abbar became the latest senior official to resign and join the opposition.
More updates from AJE:
10:06am France and Britain are to ask the UN for a Libyan arms embargo, financial sanctions and an indictment from the International Criminal Court against Libyan leaders for crimes against humanity, the Reuters news agency reports, citing an interview with French foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie on France Info radio.
10:12am Germany is preparing sanctions against Libyan leaders over the attacks on protesters, Guido Westerwelle, Germany's foreign minister, said on Friday ahead of a UN Security Council meeting.
10:14am Libyan state television reports Libyan families will receive 500 dinars (or about $400) each, while wages for some public workers could increase by 150pc.
11:00am Sky News reports that the UK government allegedly paid Libyan officials to facilitate the evacuation of British citizens.
6:25pm Serbia denied media reports on Friday that its pilots or ground crews had been involved in Libyan air force bombing missions against protesters, adding that it was suspending all its arms exports to the country. The Serbian Defence Ministry were responding to reports in Arab and Maltese media that Serb mercenary pilots took part in bombing runs against protesters in the Libyancities of Tripoli and Benghazi.